Friday, 25 March 2011

'Give your assent, Mary; you shall bear a beautiful son': The Feast of the Annunciation in Irish Sources

I have been trying to gather together some of the Irish sources for the feast of the Annunciation and turned first to the Martyrologies to see if the date of March 25 was that observed in the earliest Irish calendars. The entry for March 25 in the Martyrology of Oengus is an interesting one as it links this feast to not only the crucifixion of Christ but also to the martyrdom of the apostle James. Canon O'Hanlon supplies a translation from the Leabhar Breac copy of the Felire Oengusso:

“The Crucifixion and ConceptionOf Jesus Christ, it is meetOn one feast with piety [to celebrate them]With the passion of James”.

and comments:

The Incarnation and Crucifixion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Martyrdom of the Apostle St. James. In the "Feilire" of St. Oengus, we find the foregoing festivals noted, as having been celebrated, on this day, in the ancient Irish Church. The feast of Christ's Incarnation is now usually called that of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. There seems to have been a very generally received tradition, likewise, that the Crucifixion of Our Divine Saviour occurred on this day. Besides, the Martyrdom of St. James, the Apostle, who was beheaded by Herod, about the Feast of the Pasch, is celebrated in many ancient Martyrologies. Sometimes, the present Apostle is called "Frater Domini", and sometimes, "Frater S. Joannis Evangelistae." [1]

A more recent commentator, Father Peter O'Dwyer, looks at the Martyrology of Tallaght, which he describes as ' the immediate source of the Felire Oengusso' and records its entry for today:

Father O'Dwyer also notes that the Crucifixion and the Annunciation are linked in the Stowe Missal. In a footnote he adds:

The tradition concerning the coincidence of the two dates is recorded by St. Augustine PL, 42, Cols. 893-94 and is found in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum on 25 March which is described as the anniversary of both events, the Annunciation and the Crucifixion. [2]

Thus it would seem that this double commemoration is not something unique to the early Irish Church.

Mrs Helena Concannon, who examined the history of Marian devotion in Ireland some fifty years before Father O'Dwyer, has an account of a sermon preached at the great Columban foundation of Bobbio:

A Bobbio sermon on the Annunciation has some beautiful passages. One reproduces a favourite Bobbio motif: the contrast between Mother Mary and Mother Eve:

“Satan by the serpent spoke to Eve, and through her and her hearing, brought death to the world. God by the angel uttered the word to Mary and poured out life on the whole world”.

And then it goes on: “Holy Mary was made the heavenly ladder, because God through her descended to the earth that, through her, mankind may deserve to ascend to the heavens. When the angel said Ave, he offered to her the heavenly salutation. When he said 'full of grace' he showed forth that now the wrath of condemnation was wholly set aside, and that the grace of full blessing was restored”. [3]

The Annunciation is also praised in Irish poetry. Scholar Andrew Breeze has published a number of articles on this feast. In one he looks at the theme of the Mother of God being the daughter of her Son. This motif, he suggests, is earlier than the one alluded to in the Bobbio sermon where the Ave of the angel reverses the sorrow brought by Eva 'Eve' to the world. Breeze locates the origins of the daughter of her Son motif in North Africa, and thus one automatically thinks of the writings of Saint Augustine as the most likely source for its dissemination into Ireland. Breeze, however suggests that it may have come directly from Spain, where the eleventh Council of Toledo in 675 declared Christ to have been both father and son to the Virgin Mary. It was a theme which had clearly reached the monastic poet Cú Chuimne of Iona (d. 747), for it is reflected in his Hiberno-Latin composition Cantemus in omni die (Let us sing every day) in praise of the Blessed Virgin. Stanza Eight as translated by Breeze reads:

He then goes on to an interesting discussion of how this theme might have reached Cú Chuimne, which centres around the fact that Cú Chuimne was linked to a group of scholars at the monastery of Lismore, County Waterford. Lismore had a monastic library rich in Spanish texts, including those of the Council of Toledo. Further proof that this Council's texts were known soon after 675 in Ireland is shown by their quotation in the Hiberno-Latin scriptural commentary De Ordine Creaturarum, which was written before 700.

The Iona link with this motif is maintained in an 11th-century poem attributed to Saint Columbcille, stanza eight of which reads, in the translation of Father Paul Walsh:

7 comments:

I always look forward to your beautiful posts and I enjoy your blog too! You put in an amazing amount of work. This is the kind of ecumenism that we need. The Annunciation is a wonderful feast and along with the Purification it is the one that I look forward to most every year. Thank you for enriching my devotional life by your spiritual and insightful researches.

Brigit, Христианский привет! Please tell me that you're making this into an academic study. You have all the potential to make this into a Masters or Doctorate and you should really consider doing it. There is so much good you could do as Dr. Brigit! This is another great post.

Thank you both very much for your kind comments! It would indeed be great if I could pursue some academic studies in this field but I doubt it will happen. I am glad though that my efforts as an amateur researcher are appreciated.

The 'Fiat' of the Virgin Mary at the Annunciation and the 'Fiat' of Jesus Christ in the Garden are the two essential acts of assent of humanity to the saving Will of God. The link between the two is wonderfully brought out in this article. It should enrich our meditation during the last weeks of Lent and during Easter.

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